


the Duende

by marchadelorca



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Character Study, Internal Monologue, M/M, Passion, Theatre, but he's so f cute so, it's just Neil thinking and being kinda of a drama queen, it's more something like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29400903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchadelorca/pseuds/marchadelorca
Summary: The dim lights backstage helped him perfectly to mitigate such momentum every time they finished rehearsing, it was not uncommon for his head to explode in a sudden migraine; as if the glare of the stage heightened his euphoria and stripped away his body.Could love be physical pains?
Relationships: Todd Anderson & Neil Perry, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry, i mean if you squint it's not really there buuut yes
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	the Duende

**Author's Note:**

> (i make some fangirling remarks of poetry, spanish and García Lorca at the end notes)
> 
> also, English is not my first language! so this was first written in Spanish and then translated by myself :) I did my best to edit (and then translate) as correctly as I could, and still make it readable. so I apologize in advance for any strange expression hahaha

What he was feeling, had to be love. It had to be. 

It was a previously unknown candor that allowed him to even conclude on such a simple premise: he had fallen in love. 

It was the suddenness, too.

First it came as waves of awe, which slowly swirled in her belly by way of extreme gratitude. It was a tender sensation, not like the eroticism so many writers had taught him.

His legs did not levitate in pursuit of wanting to run and entangle themselves in some other pair more. Though his head did, totally, it could detach and strike out on its own.

That's how light Neil felt.

The dim lights backstage helped him perfectly to mitigate such momentum every time they finished rehearsing, it was not uncommon for his head to explode in a sudden migraine; as if the glare of the stage heightened his euphoria and stripped away his body. 

Could love be physical pains?

He hadn't thought about it before. However, how annoying it became and the absent classes due to discomfort, everything intermingled led him to look for a solution.  
He spent a whole week trying to figure it out, between corridors, books, and distrustful but tender glances. ‘What are you reading, what are you doing?’ was stuff some of his friends would ask when they saw him immersed in an alienating and voracious reading.

The only answer he would give was a short ‘nothing’ and a sudden closing of the text in question, segments of dust flying and reaching his flushed cheeks.

If the friend in question was one _really quiet_ , the reaction would be even more curious. 

And he would only receive a shrug of the shoulders in his direction.

He wasn't used to harboring embarrassment in his being, but these days were different. He had gone from founding sigils with the agitated prose of Thoreau, to searching for subtexts among sentences of the most honeyed.

(Despite encountering explanations that crumpled his heart into sighs, Neil knew that the lover in his mind was not the one who provoked such contemporary agitations.)

Or maybe he was just lost.

So it was that one of his companions questioned him on one of those nights when he stroked his own forehead, vainly trying to alleviate the tremors that Shakespeare -poor, unknowing him- generated in him before he left.

“Are you all right?” asked the female voice sweetly, and Neil didn't flinch until he felt the ghostly touch of the soft hand on his back. He barely turned his head to give her a faint but charming smile. 

The lights, as usual, at such a moment dimmed again and the girl saw the exact moment when her opposite temper seemed to rest. Yes, he felt better now. He let her know with a slight nod of his head. “Now you look lost. And it's getting weird because you look more excellent every day.”

The laughter escaping from the boy's lips became more like that characteristic of his bubbly personality, instantly infecting his companion. 

“Somewhat, yes,” muttered Neil, after a while enjoying those little moments. Those little breaks from not performing and still being able to enjoy the absence of loneliness, next to someone who shared the same ardor. Probably. Did she? 

The constant thoughts attacked him again, his face a little rosier than before and the sweat threatening to break out again.  
Behind them, he could make out the finished replica of the forest painting; such a sight increasing his pure affection. He could feel that he was part of the breath of his friends there and of the stage and of all the scripts they would practice until the end of the universe.

And that it was also a good time to consult her doubts with someone else. 

“Mary,” he turned to her again, in a rapturous sigh, his hand clutching the opposite one as if he was about to fall. “The thing with me is, that I think I'm in love.”

At her gossipy look, he tried to explain himself. The interpreter's paste vanished as soon as he stumbled again and again over the same words, and the tears so authentic that they tried to break through the barrier.

A solution was not what I had intended, the boy reasoned, but the sense of calm was immeasurable at the end of the cataract of what had been said. They were minutes without questions, just an adolescent drowning among so many good and overwhelming sensations created to attack him. 

A solution was not what he wanted either, not even a few words of support. Maybe just to unburden himself; despite that, he received a handshake and a totally understanding look. 

“Oh, Neil. You're not in love,” Mary commented, as touched as he was. “What's wrong with you is that you've found your passion. You're just freaking dazzled by theater.”

And although he was very confused at first, enlightenment came into his mind and he understood: from one second to the next, he was shaken with the vehement perception of being engulfed by his growing passion.

It had to be love, and it **surely** was.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyways he's still in love with someone but that's something we already know! 
> 
> The Spanish word at the beginning belongs to an essay by García Lorca called "Juego y teoría del duende".
> 
> There, he tries to offer a theoretical framework to that intangible expression. El duende is that special gift that some artists possess.
> 
> And although it is linked to flamenco, when it is said that an "artist has duende", what is expressed is the charisma that this person has for his or her art. It is an expression that refers to the art that emerges naturally during a performance, that innate talent that some people have.
> 
> It is a concept that goes beyond reason, that appeals directly to the emotions that the artist provokes in the audience during his performance. It alludes to that moment when the performer puts his or her soul on stage, creates pure art and his or her performance borders on perfection.
> 
> I really recommend that you read this essay, if you can. Keating would have loved to give it to teach and make kids understand the places from which passion (and that 'gift') can come.


End file.
